Passport Foundation

Burbank’s investment firm, Passport Capital, managed as much as $5 billion in assets before substantial losses caused the firm to close its flagship fund. ³ Burbank later expanded Passport Capital into “cryptocurrency” trading. ⁴

Leadership

The co-founder of Passport Foundation is Alison Carlson. Carlson is married to Burbank and the president of the Forsythia Foundation, an environmental funder. Carlson’s background includes graduating from Stanford University, working for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). ⁵

John Burbank’s interests include supporting organizations like Ralph Nader’s left-wing advocacy group Public Citizen. ⁶ Burbank’s estimated net worth as of February 2017 was at least $119 million dollars. ⁷

Grantees

The Passport Foundation grants monies to many institutions that advance a left-of-center agenda. Many organizations have received large grants including an environmentalist legal group Earthjustice, environmentalist advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council , and the environmentalist voter activation network League of Conservation Voters. ⁸ Passport Foundation also contributed to the left-of-center technology group Code for America. ⁸

Passport Foundation has made substantial contributions to co-founder Alison Carlson’s own organization, the Forsythia Foundation. Passport Foundation granted $22,000,000 to Forsythia in two allocations in 2011 and 2015. ⁸ Forsythia promotes so-called “green chemistry,” opposing the use of common products purported to cause negative health effects. ⁹

Both Forsythia and Passport are members of the Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN). ¹ HEFN is a network of grant makers that focus on health impacted by the pollutants in the environment and environmental justice. ¹⁰